Mail Order Ride
Mail Order Ride
Rolling my own at the Concours
In all the years I've been doing our annual Rolling Concours, I've ridden my own bike exactly once. Mad tweaks in the cosmos, bad financial planning ("Sure, I'd love to buy another vintage Jaguar!") and other of life's interesting twists had seen me ride a vintage-like 2001 Kawasaki W650, my own '76 Laverda Triple (not strictly concours legal at the time) a Norton Atlas café-racer borrowed from the Chief and a CBR1000RR, definitely out of era.
Finally, this year, I got the right bike, a 1954 Velocette MSS, the elegant old British 500cc Single you see here. And it only took stacks of money, an engine rebuild and nearly 10,000 miles of shipping by land and air to make it happen.
If it were easy, everybody at the Hoot would have been riding an MSS bought while on vacation in New Zealand...
Yes, it’s true, rather than a $10 T-shirt or cheapo themed spoon, I picked up this beauty early last year whilst chillin’ in the Southern Hemisphere. My petrol-headed good friend Peter Robinson of Christchurch, who I met though the sale of my old Austin-Healey, took me to a vintage bike race for some fun. It was at the track I met his racer pals, among them Paul Ainsworth, an electrical contractor who runs a gorgeous 500cc Norton Manx.
“Always loved 500cc Singles,” I said. “Actually, I’ve been looking for a street-going Velo for some time. Not as exotic as your racer, mind, but wonderful old things nonetheless.”
“I’ve got an MSS I might like to sell,” said Paul.
He had me at that very moment, and unless the bike were bright pink and powered by a duct-taped-in lawnmower engine, I was buying. Turns out it was black and shiny, as a proper Velo should be. Never mind the rod knock and aged tires, Paul had done an extensive restoration of the bike in the ’80s and virtually everything was in good condition and correct.
The same local retired engine reconditioning man who had done the motor for Paul first time around agreed to give it the once over for me, and I’d have the bike shipped stateside after the work was done.
New Zealand being the Land Where Time Slows Down, it took long enough for the build that by the time it was finished, my next vacation had already popped up. So I took a 1000-mile vintage-bike tour around the South Island with Peter, Paul and a few other of his mates before air-mailing the bike home just in time to fill it with oil and gas, clean it lightly and load it on a truck bound for the Rolling Concours at the Honda Hoot in Knoxville.
The Velo was a glorious way to see the surrounding countryside. NZ or Tennessee, the memories it generated beat a souvenir T-shirt every time.
Mark Hoyer
